So I realized a pattern of my inspiration to share my gratitude practice. It seems that I like sharing it when something good comes out of something disappointing. So I guess you can say the inspiration for my gratitude sharing is a rainbow. I know that sounds cheesy and you may be feeling silly reading this right now, but I'm glad if it plants a smile on your face!
Anyway...
Positive Experience of the day: Today I realized I have a great friend. You know, one of those people that are always there when you need a pick up, but that are also there to tell it like it is. It's hard being disappointed, but everyone has disappointed someone at some point. I think of all the inside work, practice, and growth I've gone through to be as mindful as I am today. And by mindful I mean striving every day to become a better person and a better communicator to be able to be more considerate of other people's feelings. Still, it is safe to say someone, sometime, will be disappointed by me in some way. Whether it being for a bad joke (my humor is an acquired taste sometimes), for a (too blunt) truth, or for a misunderstanding. And some people are so out of tune and dualistic that they project their shadow selves or negative past experiences or stereotypes or social influences into people they interact with. It takes a lot of practice to "see" people's souls instead of just their physical form. To realize they too have hopes and dreams and struggles and a past and a future. Basically, that they are more complex and have more depth than what you are meeting on any one given day. I believe in truth, but I don't believe in nitpicking trying to find something wrong, because when you focus on finding the blemishes you'll find them, but they are an illusion of your conditioning. Because we all have life experience blemishes. Without an intentional mindfulness practice we tend to see people through a lens of fear that leads to indifference. We tend to see people through a projection of our fractured civilization that lacks integrity and is often cruel to the vulnerable. We tend to see people through the looking glass of our conditioning – the lie. Lately I've been soaking in that phrase, "the worst distance between two people is misunderstanding." That's why I speak my mind and ask when I still have doubts and questions before judging inconclusively. Because sometimes I feel misunderstood or misrepresented unjustly, and I know others do too. Without an intentional mindfulness practice we tend to forget that people grow. People don't stay in the bubble where people living in a vacuum left them the last time they saw them or had any sort of relationship with them. News to those people: people, like flowers and like every living thing, GROW. There are so many layers of ourselves, and so many different levels, and every day those layers and levels experience some growth. Either towards love or towards fear. Everything is either love or a call for love. We either nurture our spirits or our egos. It's our individual choice which emotions, positive or negative, we cultivate. And having even a friend or two that practices, and who are very intentional about evolving that practice, is priceless. Today I give thanks for my friend, who finds opportunities for growth in our polarities.
I'm also grateful for having come across a 17-year-old wise activist who's message I'm currently in LOVE with. Honestly, because it's like she's read my mind. I was blown away by her young wisdom. Her Black American experience speaks to the not white enough not black enough not brown enough not yellow enough not enough this and not enough that messages that I've been receiving (and probably internalizing) all my life until this point. It spoke to the little girl inside of me who felt disparaged in her own country, her own society, her own community, and even her own multicultural family. Merging our words in a mutual sentiment:
If you’ve been oppressed, your love for yourself is your revolution.
You are a biological miracle and your unique configuration has high cosmic value.
We should all be using the power of social media to fight current main stream media. (Social, that's right!)
Because it hasn't been the educational or healthy media that has influenced our popular culture most, but the media that, like a virus, has (virally) perpetuated the stereotyping and pigeonholing of minorities and groups perceived as "different."
(That means that the majority has drank the kool aid.)
The truth is that Americans come in a variety of different flavors and we should be proud of that, because accepting and respecting our (bio)diversity makes us stronger.
How can I be an activist in a society that disparages me?
How can I be an activist for choosing to love myself regardless?
Just by choosing to love myself, choosing to honor myself, choosing to value myself highly, and being comfortable with my identity, in a society that tells me I shouldn’t value myself highly because I’m not a symbol of purity because I’m not white enough, or that I'm not worth as much as a man with my same knowledge or skill set, I am starting a revolution!
Because there is nothing more pure love as the soil from which our nourishment grows.
Just by deciding to be comfortable in who I am, I’m doing something revolutionary and I’m doing something political.
My activism exists through the work of my bones against weight in the morning.
My personal is also my political.
This is a call to action.
If you have experienced oppression, if you have been historically oppressed, then your love for yourself is your revolution. If you have been historically an oppressor, then your love for your self and everyone else – especially – is a revolution.
Be your own hero, respect others so that you are respect worthy.
Share things that empower healthfully; that show off the best human qualities: our wisdom, our capacity for goodness, each other's true beauty – because we all have some form or another.
I don’t think that we can go forth and overcome what's wrong with the world, or reach reconciliations, if we are still fighting internalized messages of lack, unworthiness, and inferiority.
And so to me that’s the first step.
Imagine all that we can do if we are first comfortable in our own skin.7 things I'm grateful for:
1) Mindful relationships
2) Conscious growth
3) Activism
4) Being perfectly me
5) Self Love & Care
6) Understanding that I am a miracle living miraculously
7) Trusting in the innate good of people
